1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the field of telephony communications including computer telephony integrated (CTI) systems and relates particularly to methods and apparatus for transitioning a voice-only telephone session to a voice plus data session between at least two active parties.
2. Discussion of the State of the Art
The field of telephony communications has experienced many technological improvements over the recent years relating to computer telephony integration (CTI), multiple party communications, intelligent routing, voice over Internet protocol, and end usability through enhanced features. Seamless bridging between traditional switched telephony and Internet protocol network telephony and accompanying standard protocols has enabled communication sessions and media transfer sessions that encompass end users operating a wide variety of communications devices.
In typical enterprise communication, workers or associates have telephone extension numbers associated with an existing CTI-enabled PBX central office telephony switch. A caller off-hooks a telephone set, dials an extension to place a call and some form of ringing event or notice of the incoming call and alerts the recipient. To answer the call, the recipient off-hooks a telephone set to accept the call. The physical nature of such a call is bi-directional voice over the connections between each set and the PBX.
Recent developments in telephony enable any user having a network-connected personal computer with a video display unit (VDU) running a graphical user interface (PC/GUI) and having a private branch exchange (PBX) telephone set, or public switched telephony network (PSTN)-connected telephone, or a cellular telephone, to initiate a voice and data session with any other users similarly equipped with a PC/GUI connected to the prevailing data network and a telephone. A commercially available system is known to the inventor for achieving such voice and data session capability. The system involves a voice data conference bridge that is leveraged to connect users for bi-directional data sharing over the connected PCs and bi-directional voice using the telephones.
In practice of state-of-art bridging, a user invokes an application on a PC and initiates a session with another party, which is designated as a contact of the user. The PC interfaces with a conference bridge that sets up a call leg to the initiator's telephone. The initiating party's telephone rings and a screen pop-up window is sent to, and is displayed on, the associated PC used to initiate the session. The conference bridge also places a call to a destination telephone, so that at the other end the called party's telephone rings and a screen pop-up window is sent to, and is displayed on, the called party's computer. The latest state-of-art capability known to the inventor also allows for controlling the call legs of the connected telephones through each users' PC interface so that these call legs may be dropped, muted, or placed on hold, and so that additional users may potentially be added to the conference, dropped, muted, and so forth. The state of art system can be used with PSTN telephones, cell phones and with enterprise PBX systems.
A limitation of the prior art system relates to how the call is initiated. Typically, users are accustomed to initiating telephone calls from the dial-pad on their telephone sets, and not from a PC/GUI application. Then, later in the call, users may optionally desire to add data collaboration capabilities. However, the prior art requires the user to have initially placed the call from a PC/GUI. Otherwise, data sharing or collaboration tasks cannot later be achieved. The requirement of initiating the call from a PC can be somewhat awkward for users in the fast paced environments of an enterprise or call center.
Therefore, what is needed in the art is a system and method for seamlessly transitioning conventional telephone voice sessions, initiated from the dial-pad of the telephone set, into a collaboration session involving both voice and data. Such a system and method would streamline collaboration by reducing the task complexity for initiating such sessions.